Upcoming Events:
- Monday, September 12: Red, white and blue dress down day
- Tuesday, September 13: Dining for Dollars at MAK’S in La Grange (refer to flyer in Wednesday envelope)
- Tuesday, September 13: FIRST 8 am weekly Mass for kindergarten! Doors open at 7:45! Please be on time!
- Friday, September 16: Spirit wear, dress down day
What’s Due:
- If you wish to volunteer at St. Cletus School, please make sure you complete the following requirements. We will have two classroom volunteer opportunities in October. Get these requirements completed!
- Milk: Any changes to milk orders: please email ktownsend@stcletusparish.com
- Headphones: If you haven’t sent in headphones for your student, please do so ASAP. Remind your student to turn it into the important papers tray.
- Let’s Connect: Consider following St. Cletus on social media! In particular, please look for St. Cletus on Facebook and join “Mrs. Mahr: kindergarten is sweet” group on Facebook. There are some great pictures of your children posted already! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oKa8aFuzj8uv9iUc_EWtaD-5zUML5Fa9/view?usp=sharing
- Hot lunch: Don’t forget to place your weekly hot lunch orders!
- House page: Due Friday, September 23rd. See below for an example. Do NOT use 3D embellishments and make sure you cover the side where your child’s name is (so the chimney is on the left). This will become a traveling house book!
This Week:
We celebrated our friend Giuliana this week! Happy belated (August 18) birthday to Giuliana!
- Our second fire drill went well. The children understand why the alarm has to be so loud and did a great job not covering their ears and getting OUT of the building quietly.
- We attended our first PBIS assembly on Wednesday. More on PBIS to come home in a parent letter next week!
- D105 speech screenings are complete. If your child qualified for speech services or an additional screening, the D105 speech path would have reached out to you by now.
- We finished the iReady math and reading diagnostic. The students will begin their ‘learning paths’ next week.
Next Week:
Language Arts:
- Jolly Phonics: we will continue group 2 sounds: e, h, r, m, d; we will focus on letter formation. We spend a lot of time on this now because once we get to daily journaling in November, it’s much easier when students can actually read what they’re writing and it’s also beneficial to students when less effort has to be put into the formation of letters and that focus instead is placed on writing the sounds to make words and sentences.
- Phonemic awareness: Daily phonemic awareness exercises are an important part of our day. Research shows that strong phonemic awareness is a BIG indicator of reading success. Right now, here is what we are working on: hearing rhyming words, isolating beginning sounds, breaking apart compound words and reading sentences with expression. Simply put, Phonics is working with print (letters and words), phonemic awareness is done orally (manipulating sounds).
- Name writing: We will continue to focus on using one capital letter and starting at the correct lines.
- Literacy centers will include magnetic letters, salt writing, name writing practice, listening center and write the room. Write the room will evolve as the year goes on. Right now students are writing “the (label)”. It will soon change to a simple sentence, then a sentence with a color word. During write the room, your student is practicing word wall words, understanding that words make up sentences, and letter writing…all while MOVING around the room with a clipboard! Kindergarteners are meant to MOVE!
Math: We will begin to work on GO MATH Chapter 1 workbook next week.
- Number formation: we will learn number formation poems to help us correctly form numbers 1-9. We will say these poems ALL THE TIME when we’re writing numbers!
- Counting by 1s to 20.
- Writing numbers to 20.
- using > < = to compare numbers
- 1 to 1 Counting of a group of objects
- Classify objects
- Finding Shapes in Environment and Describe Positions (above, below, beside, etc)
- Identify 2-D Shapes (different orientations/sizes)
- Patterning: creating, finishing and labeling
- Tally marks: representing a number using tally marks. We will practice making “bundles of 5” and “groups of ten”; doing this really helps children improve their number sense and understanding of tens and ones.
- Ten frame: representing numbers on a ten frame and being able to identify quickly. Below is what a ten frame looks like with 2 counters. Students need to be able recognize counters on a ten frame automatically.
Religion:
- We will begin to attend Tuesday weekly Mass on September 13. On Tuesdays, Mrs. Zontos will open the doors at 7:45 so we can get paired up with our 8th grade buddies and be in church by 8am. Please be on time!
- We have started our first kindness project in kindergarten. Keeping with our ‘kindergarten is sweet’ theme, we are “sprinkling kindness” everywhere we can. When your child is caught doing something kind, he/she is given a sticker. If your child comes home with a sticker, be sure to ask about it! A teacher may have caught your child or another student may have told on him/her! Sometimes Mrs. Zontos or Mrs. Mahr may miss kindness being sprinkled, but the good news is God is always watching!
- “I am special to my family”; we feel God’s love through our family–a hug, our yummy lunches, that goodnight kiss–all ways we feel God’s love! Jesus had a family too. They are special and we call them the “holy family”. We will visit the holy family in our church. Ask your child to show you! We will also continue to sing our I am Special song. Ask your child to sing it to you! Hint: I am special I am special, if you look, you will see…”